Yoga is a mind and body practice with historical origins in ancient Indian philosophy; it has been associated with cultural, religious and physical activity for more than 2,000 years. Its practitioners have asserted its effect on balancing emotional, physical and spiritual health for decades, but only recently has there been a move to substantiate these claims through research. In a world that demands substantive clinical research evidence to support different approaches to health care, yoga is gaining attention. Despite rapid advances in medical technology and continuing pharmaceutical research into using medication to relieve symptoms, in the past few years we have seen a significant growth in research addressing the impact of yoga on health and wellbeing. Unlike pharmaceutical & other AYUSH medications, yoga cannot be packaged in a box or simply taken mindlessly, nor can it be marketed in huge batches to make enormous profit. According to the 2007 National Health Interview Survey (NHIS), which included a comprehensive survey on the use of complementary health approaches by Americans, yoga is the sixth most commonly used complementary health practice among adults. More than 13 million adults practiced yoga in the previous year, and between the 2002 and 2007 NHIS, use of yoga among adults increased by 1 percent (or approximately 3 million people). The 2007 survey also found that more than 1.5 million children practiced yoga in the previous year. The amount and quality of research on the impact of yoga for improving health and treating medical conditions has increased dramatically in the past decade. It has also become quite specialized, with most reviews of yoga research focusing only a single disease or population. While scientific research on the health effects of yoga postures has been conducted and published for many years this line of scientific inquiry has grown tremendously only in the last 10-20 years, especially in terms of more rigorous randomized, controlled trials (RCT). A search on the US National Library of Medicine’s biomedical database PubMed now yields approximately 3,150 scientific publications on yoga. In addition to RCTs of the health benefits of yoga, there are many other important avenues of yoga research such as epidemiological research that helps researchers to understand the characteristics of people who practice yoga, methodological and measurement research to improve the quality of yoga research, and qualitative yoga research with narratives that directly carry the voices of those who teach and practice yoga. There has also been considerable research done on the more general physical effects of yoga practice. With this large upsurge in research documenting the therapeutic effects of yoga, efforts have been underway to understand the mechanisms of these health benefits, including research on inflammation and the autonomic nervous system. It is important to note that the original purpose of yoga – to increase one’s spiritual well-being or connection with the divine - has typically been a neglected area for researchers.